SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey talks with retired Sen. Phil Leventis and Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter about the Fair Maps SC campaign to end gerrymandering in South Carolina.
Leventis, elected in 1982, knows better than most how the game is played. “Having been involved in five reapportionments, I can tell you that it is driven primarily by partisan interests — keeping the majority or trying to gain the majority — and personal partisan interests, trying to keep a safe district for yourself. That’s a shame.”
Leventis believes that only citizens can take the politics out of drawing maps. “What we need is the most objective group we can get to design districts with the charge that they be competitive,” he said.
The fair maps plan is a way to do that.
“I’ve seen the fair maps plan, I’ve worked on the plan, and I’ve talked about it with other people, and it is a grand plan. That it is right and good is not enough to carry the day. This plan can compel legislators to take a vote on it. Nobody can compel legislators how to vote except their constituents.”
After two years research conducted by the Network’s nonpartisan Education Fund, Rep. Cobb-Hunter withdrew from redistricting legislation she sponsored in 2016, and introduced fair maps legislation in 2018.
The legislation to create a citizens redistricting commission includes a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to allow citizens to vote on the matter, letting people rather than politicians to draw district lines. Why the companion bills? “I’m a realist,” Cobb-Hunter explains. “I understand the process. The point of the resolution is to use the statutory authority of citizens to compel their local county councils, to compel the legislature to do things differently.”
History has shown that the legislature will not reform itself and willingly give up the power to draw district maps. The courts have provided no relief when it comes to gerrymandering.
“So for me and the Fair Maps Coalition that I’ve been working with it made sense to say Plan A was the General Assembly, Plan B was the courts, let’s try Plan C, which is the citizens.”
Elected in 1992, Cobb-Hunter is the longest-serving incumbent, longest-serving woman in the SC state legislature, and the longest-serving person of color in the history of that body. “The bottom line is that things have to change,” she said. “People ought to have choices, and the reality is that here in South Carolina voters simply don’t have choices. Competition is not part of our state legislative races, and that’s not good for democracy, it’s not good for the system, and it’s not good for legislators because they tend to focus on a few people in a House or Senate district [who elect them in their party’s primary].”
“The bottom line is that things have to change,” she said. “People ought to have choices, and the reality is that here in South Carolina voters simply don’t have choices. Competition is not part of our state legislative races, and that’s not good for democracy, it’s not good for the system, it’s not good for legislators because they tend to focus on a few people in a House or Senate district.”